The Ghoul's Revenge
by Frank Hemingway
Summary: Mayor McDonough has kicked all the ghouls out of Diamond City. Many are content to flee to Goodneighbor, but not Stacie Lee. An ex-mercenary, she has different ideas.
1. Chapter 1: The Glowing Sea

Ghoul, they called her: freak, ugliest thing in the Commonwealth. The folks in Diamond City had been well and truly duped by that McDonough fella. Nobody cared that up until two years ago her name had been Stacie Lee, that she had been a daughter and a wife, that she had been loved and had loved. No, all they cared about was the ugliness of her skin, the gruffness of her voice. Sometimes her skin flapped in the breeze, flaked away, like a snake shedding. They hated that. The people were angry; the ghouls were their targets. Ghouls, these days, were almost worse than Super Mutants or Synths in the eyes of Diamond City.

Stacie could easily see that McDonough was using the ghouls as his ticket to the election. It was just a shame it had worked. The people of Diamond City had had the curtain wrapped around their face, covering their eyes, stifling their common sense. Even that fella Hancock, the mayor's smooth-skinned brother, so vocal in the ghouls' defense, couldn't do anything. The events had been set in motion, and now here she was, husbandless, effectively an orphan, wandering.

Many of her ghoul-friends fled to Goodneighbor. There was a life there for them, they said, and they would be safe. There was a place to hide. And if you didn't want to hide? If you wanted to live? Well, you were shit out of luck. It was either stay in Diamond City and get your head torn off, or flee to Goodneighbor and fall in with mercenaries and thieves and hookers and gangsters. Stacie had had enough of killers to last her a life time.

Before she was a ghoul (before the nasty chem jag which had robbed her of skin, love, and family) Stacie had escorted a lady called Marcy Long across the Wasteland. She carried a custom-built .45 combat rifle, with a reflex circle sight, an elongated quick-eject magazine, and an anti-recoil stock. She either wore her combat armor over some comfortable long-johns, or the metal armor she'd scavenged from some dead Brotherhood fellas. But now… she wandered with naught but a shirt and some tatty jeans.

Oh, she had been a Legend of the Wastes. Marcy had never been safer, as they journeyed from Sanctuary Hill all the way to The Castle; these places were naught more than wrecks, but that Mr. Handy Codsworth up at Sanctuary sometimes had something to trade, the rusty old thing. And there were sometimes chem addicts or friendly(ish) raiders at The Castle. Marcy had said to her once: "Stacie, with you around, I feel like we can go anywhere, be anyone. I used to live in fear that my Brahmin would be killed, mutilated, whatever. You know how it is. But now I think we might actually be able to live, not just survive." Stacie had smiled at her employer and patted her on the back. The Wasteland blew up a dusty wind and that night they took shelter in an old wood cabin, a low fire of embers between them, the Brahmin huffing in the corner, silly grins on their faces. And when she returned home, it was to John, her lover, and her mother and father.

The radiation from the Glowing Sea bit at her as the memories did, but the memories hurt more. The radiation was nothing more than an irritant, like a fly that won't stop buzzing. It even infused her with energy. She had nicked her hand a day ago, climbing over a broken car, and now she could feel the healing process quickening. She wished she had a gun, however; there were stingwings and bloatflies and all kind of nasty things in this place. She had only ever been to the Glowing Sea once before, to deal with this fella named—Aenid, no, Virgil? It was hard to remember. The guy had been a super mutant claiming to have once been a man. Whatever, Stacie had collected a nice chunk of caps and chems for some food and water, and then begun her return journey to Marcy. Of course, then she had been wearing a Hazmat suit. But not now. No need.

And that was the day she had hunkered down in a cave, hiding from a radiation storm, and just thought Fuck It. That first suck of Jet had been like manna from heaven. Everything had slowed, heightened, and she was suddenly struck with the horrible idea that she had never really seen anything before. The cave's stalactites and stalagmites were now more than scenery; they were fingers, reaching. Each gradation in the grey was like a rainbow of color in the amplified world. Everything bloomed, exploded, refracted. And then it passed, far too quickly. She cursed, and took another suck. And then that had passed, and another, and another, until there was not a thing left. She had rummaged through the bag, desperate for another hit. Then she had found it, the words EXPERIMENTAL printed on its side—

"Damn it," she cursed, in her gruff voice. "Stop it. Just stop it. You won't do no one no good thinkin' on it like that."

She walked headlong through the Glowing Sea. Nobody would follow her here. There would be no judgmental husband or parents, no distraught Marcy, screaming that she needed help, no McDonough, decrying an entire species of humanoid. No, here there was only the radiation, the insects, and—

The footsteps rocked the earth. Stones rumbled against the ground. Her legs turned to jelly-like blobs and she had to focus to stay upright. Her heart was suddenly a war-drum in her ears. The Deathclaw lumbered past, its head low, its horns curving like twin scythes, its feet splayed. Its spine was visible, ridged, like the edge of a mountain, and each of its breaths sent shadowy plumes into the irradiated air.

Stacie stood statue-still. Perhaps if she'd had her .45, or her 5.56, or even her goddam .38, but she didn't. Perhaps if she'd had her metal armor, her combat armor, even her battle-coat, but no. Here she was, jeans and a shirt, barefoot, half-crazed with hunger, and the Deathclaw was looming.

As quietly as she was able, she began to turn. She would sneak away and bury herself in sand and rock until the thing passed. She hadn't realized how badly she wanted to live until the Deathclaw had come into her sight. She turned, her bones feeling old, full of aches.

She would look back, just once; and the Deathclaw would be gone.

She looked back. The Deathclaw charged.


	2. Chapter 2: Child of Atom

There was no question about it: she would die here. The Deathclaw was charging straight at her. She was reminded of her Jet-sucking days. Time seemed to slow, each of the Deathclaw's earth-shaking steps amplified like a thousand supermutants roaring as one. She closed her eyes and waited to die. There was nothing else for it, anyway. There was no family, no love, no solidarity: just the mud from which she came and to which she would return. They said my life would flash before my eyes, she thought detachedly. They said I would see my life. But I don't see my lover or my parents or even Marcy. I just see blackness and I just hear the ground and the breathing—

"Down!" a voice called.

Stacie had been in enough gun fights to obey; it wasn't even conscious, her body slumping to the dusty, rocky earth before she made any kind of decision. She peeked through her fingers, like a little girl watching something she shouldn't be, and saw a tall, dark figure stride into the Deathclaw's path.

"Back, beastie!" he screamed, waving some sort of electrified staff. "Back, beastie! Back with thee! Back, I tell thee! I command thee, with the power of Atom, the Glow strong within my heart, to step back and leave this ghouless be!"

Stacie watched in a sort of fascinated horror as the Deathclaw barreled into the man. She saw it: the man's torso ripped asunder by the horns, the blood showering around her like tiny specks of red dust, the ragdoll corpse flung to the dirt. She saw it but it didn't happen.

Instead, the man jumped to the side and struck out with his staff. There was an almighty zzzzzzzzTAH! as the staff smashed into the Deathclaw's leg. The beast roared. Stacie's ears popped, numbed. The man charged at the beast, staff lashing here and there, a blur of blue, crackling light.

"Back with thee!" he screamed, his voice gravelly and high-pitched. Stacie noticed he was wearing nothing more than a sack of a robe and sandals. "Back!" he screamed again, and struck the Deathclaw across the head.

To Stacie's disbelief, the Deathclaw took a step back. Just one. But that was all that was needed. The Deathclaw ceased to be something beyond comprehension. All her life, the Deathclaws had been feared. She had seen a Deathclaw only twice in her life, and both times she and Marcy had left the Brahmin and fled for cover. They returned to a dead Brahmin and ruined gear, but with their lives. Never would she have thought of fighting one, even with a .50 caliber, let alone a staff.

The man stepped forward again, and again; and it was like the Deathclaw was under some kind of spell. He let out an almost childlike sob-cough and then turned and bounded into the Glowing Sea.

Stacie was too stunned to move as she watched the Deathclaw's bobbing, receding horns. And then the man was standing over her. He pressed a button on his staff and it stopped crackling. Not it was a cool and calm blue, like a summer's sky. His hands were worn flesh like hers, and his face was ruined skin. He was a ghoul.

She climbed to her feet and wiped herself down. "Thank you," she said. "You just saved my life."

"Do not thank me," the man said, and smiled at her with yellow, crooked, ghoulish teeth. "Thank Atom, for He has sent me to thee for a reason, and thee has much to learn." The man held out his hand. "I am Confessor Maxim, child."

Stacie took the hand and told him her name.

"And what is thine purpose in this place?"

"Food," Stacie said, finally relenting to the all-encompassing, ever-present hunger. "If you've got some food'n'water, I'll take it'n gladly tell you why I'm here."

The man nodded slowly. "Yes, of course," he said. "A Child of Atom must not be allowed to starve. Follow me, Glowing One, and we shall have our palaver."

He walked into a nameless chunk of Waste.

"Can I ask you something 'fore we go?" Stacie called after him.

Confessor Maxin stopped and turned. "Hmm?"

"Do you always talk so fancy-like?"

Confessor Maxim grinned. "I am afraid so, child. Now, follow me."

"Aye, I'm coming," Stacie said, and followed at his feet.

Just then, the radiation storm began to clear from the Glowing Sea. Stacie knew from experience that it would push northward, into Diamond City. "Good," she growled. "I hope the bastards choke to death."


	3. Chapter 3: Child of Fate

Part of the horror they hated her for: her glowing skin. And here was this Confessor Maxim fella telling her she was special for being a Glowing One. The radiation seeped into her pores, swam throughout her, re-knotted her broken sinews and softened hard, bruised flesh. The food was meat of some kind: molerat, bloodbug, Stacie didn't care. Just to have it in her mouth, between her teeth, the explosive taste of it.

They sat in a dilapidated hut in the middle of the Glowing Sea. Dust and dirt battered the thin wood and caused the low fire to flicker, casting on-off-on-off shadows of the two of them. He had laid his electric staff aside and now he simply watched her eat.

"Like what you're seein'?" Stacie said after she sipped some wonderfully irradiated water. "Like watchin' a gal eat, do you?"

"Perhaps that is it," he said. "Or perhaps it is the wonders of your Glowing form that astound me."

"Yeah, wonders," Stacie said. "So many wonders I was damn-near killed by all kinds of low lives on my way here. Just wanted to get out to the Glowing Sea, find somewhere where scavvers and raiders and Gunners and the damned Brotherhood couldn't get at me. Lots of people hate me for these wonders."

"They're hatred is of no importance," Confessor Maxim said. "They're hatred is but a fly in the eye of Atom. They are not privy to the wonders of creation, as we are, and so they shall wander ignorant and blind. You should be glad they do not call you friend. It means you are not kin to them."

"Oh, I'm glad, so glad I can barely contain it." She ripped meat with her teeth and munched loudly, trying and failing to drown out Maxim's words.

"There is a Fate to you, child. There is a Fate to you and you do not even know it. You say it was solace you sought in the Glowing Sea. Yet, instead, you found me. Do you think that is a coincidence?"

"Yep," Stacie said. "Pretty much. By the way, friend, you've dropped your thees and thines. What's that about?"

"That mode of speaking comes and goes as does Atom's energy," Maxim said, somewhat irritably.

Stacie was all-too-aware that she was closer to Maxin's staff than he was. He had placed a ridiculous amount of trust in her. How easy it would be for her to grab the staff and beat this psychotic man to death. How easy to take out her rage at McDonough and Marcy and all the damned nasty people in the damned Commonwealth: that Piper and her useless newspaper, that synth Valentine who everybody accepted even as they shunned her; that useless Hancock, brother to the mayor. Her anger seeping out of her with each bash of the staff, Maxim's life fleeing from his body—

Don't think like that, she told herself. This man saved your life. This man gave you food. This man is your friend. And that was when she decided. She would direct her anger at those you deserved it. She set the chipped, greasy, century-old bowl aside, wiped her mouth, and then said: "Maxim, I reckon you could help me."

"Help you, child, how?"

"I reckon you know the Sea quite well, don't you? On the way back here you were navigatin' it pretty good-like, even though most of it looks pretty similar to me."

"The Sea is the closest place to Atom in the Commonwealth, child. Yes, I know it well."

"Then you might be able to tell me where I could find some weapons around here."

Maxim did the last thing Stacie expected: he laughed.

"What, somethin' funny?"

"No, child," he said, smiling softly. "It is as I said, there is a Fate to you. I had a radiation dream, not a week ago, and there was a voice, asking me for arms as you are now. And that voice was the voice of the ghouls: all the ghouls. The ghouls everywhere who must hide for their affinity with Atom; the ghouls who the Commonwealth in all its ugliness has cast aside; the ghouls whose minds turn to mush and roam as naught more than hungry beasts. All our brethren who for too long have been hunted by men and women in suits of steel. It is you, child, who will lead the ghouls to salvation."

"I don't know 'bout that," Stacie said. "But if you could point me t'ward some weapons I'd be grateful."

"I know of a place, child, but it will not be safe."

"Safe?" Now it was Stacie's turn to laugh. "I am a ghoul and this is the Commonwealth. I gave up on safe a long time ago."

"There is a shack. You would not think to look twice at it, child. But within, there lies a base of operations for the Institute."

Suddenly, the fire seemed very cold. Stacie put her hands to the earth and let radiation course up her arms. Trying to ignore the shiver that ran up her back the whole time. "Damned dangerous messin' with them."

"You said you wanted weapons—"

"I do."

"Then this is how you get them."

"Alright," Stacie said, and climbed to her feet. "Show me."


End file.
